Shigenobu: Japanese Red Army militant founder freed after 20 years
Fusako Shigenobu, 76, had evaded capture for decades before being arrested in Osaka in 2000.
Her once-feared group had aimed to provoke a global socialist revolution through high-profile terror acts.
They carried out a series of hostage-takings and hijackings, as well as a deadly attack on an Israeli airport.
But Shigenobu served time for the 1974 attack on the French embassy in The Hague, in which three Red Army militants took the ambassador and several others hostage, for 100 hours.
Shigenobu did not participate in the attack herself, but a Japanese court found in 2006 that she had helped coordinate it, sentencing her to 20 years for her role.
She had disbanded the Japanese Red Army five years earlier while awaiting trial, saying she would seek new fights within the law.
The group's last-known action was the car bombing of a US military club in Italy in 1988.
As she left prison on Saturday, she apologised for causing "damage to innocent people" to pursue their causes.
"It was half a century ago... but we caused damage to innocent people who were strangers to us by prioritising our battle, such as by hostage-taking," she said, according to news agency AFP.
She has previously expressed regret for 26 deaths caused by an attack on Tel Aviv's Lod Airport in 1972.
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